The third blog assignment

Are the concerns of a “surveillance monster” expressed in the ACLU report exaggerated?

Stanley and Steinhardt define “surveillance society” as a society, where every facet of private lives of ordinary people are monitored and recorded. There are various high-tech ways on doing so starting from face recognition techniques ending up with implantable microchips, data mining and DNA chips. There are also different types of surveillance: video, data and governmental. Stanley and Steinhardt say that the biggest threat to privacy is coming from the government. Government is seen as a “surveillance monster”. For example, president Bush beginning in 2001 secretly authorized the NSA to conduct electronic surveillance of US citizens without warrant. This case is a clear example of how the government, first of all, impinges upon the rights of citizens for privacy, and, secondly, how it violates the legislation of FISA, which requires the executive branch to warn the citizens before any electronic surveillance.

I do not think that authors exaggerated concerns about “surveillance monster”. There were given enough examples of how private lives of citizens are monitored and recorded. Here, I would like to mention two important points that authors made about government surveillance. First, the justification for surveillance as combating enemies, terrorism does not seem to help. Second, surveillance systems, once installed, rarely remain confined to their original purpose. In short, I think that as long as surveillance effectively promotes security for citizens and serves for the public interest then there is not much to woory about. But, the whole problem here is whether government surveillance effective and serves for the security provision.

Is Rajan perhaps more than a bit naive when she states "technology and the growth of a post-authoritarian generation may help the positive aspects of internationalization to be more widely felt among Russians in the new future"?

In her article, Rajan gives several reasons why Russian legislation on privacy does not work properly; moreover it fails when it comes to implementation. Basic reasons are complexity of legislative regime, inadequacy of administrative framework for implementation of laws and absence of judicial involvement in the privacy regime. Also one of the important reasons is highly politicized approach to information policies. Despite these facts, there is an optimistic estimation of the privacy regime. As Russia is open to international influence, it is believed that young generation may change current situation concerning the privacy regime in the country by standardizing Russian legislature or its information culture according to Western patterns.

On the one hand, we can assume that Russian youth is able to bring certain positive changes to its information culture, especially when it comes to the implementation of laws. On the other hand, having in mind its authoritarian regime it is to some extent naïve to think that International influence and the role of youth may change the perception of the government about privacy rights of individuals.

Are issues of surveillance, privacy, and democratization relevant at all for understanding Kyrgyz or regional (Central Asia) politics?

Turkmenistan is an obvious example, where there is no either the right for freedom of expression or right for privacy. I think the term used by Stanley and Steinhardt “surveillance monster” perfectly fits to the repressive regime of Turkmenistan.
Situation in Kyrgyzstan is slightly different. During the events of 11th of April, KTR was showing rally as a gathering of homeless and alcoholic people. This channel has shown plots, where the opposition organizers were giving money to protestors. At the same time they avoided showing reports of provocations by unknown men who were trying to disrupt the rally. It is known that KTR is pro governmental and for this reason the information provided during the rally was not objective. This fact tells us how government uses its power to restrict free and objective flow of information, which is violation of democratic principles.